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A critical review of entrepreneurial ecosystems research: towards a future research agenda

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  • Janna Alvedalen
  • Ron Boschma

Abstract

The entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) literature has attracted much attention, especially in policy circles. However, the concept suffers from a number of shortcomings: (1) it lacks a clear analytical framework that makes explicit what is cause and what is effect in an EE; (2) while being a systemic concept, the EE has not yet fully exploited insights from network theory, and it is not always clear in what way the proposed elements are connected in an EE; (3) it remains a challenge what institutions (and at what spatial scale) impact on the structure and performance of EE; (4) studies have often focused on the EE in single regions or clusters, but lack a comparative and multi-scalar perspective and (5) the EE literature tends to provide a static framework taking a snapshot of EE without considering systematically their evolution over time. For each of these shortcomings, we make a number of suggestions to take up in future research on EE.

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  • Janna Alvedalen & Ron Boschma, 2017. "A critical review of entrepreneurial ecosystems research: towards a future research agenda," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(6), pages 887-903, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eurpls:v:25:y:2017:i:6:p:887-903
    DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2017.1299694
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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